


The Middle

by FlorBexter



Series: Breaking the firewall verse [2]
Category: HIStory3 - 圈套 | HIStory3: Trapped
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case of the Week, Hacker!Zhao Zi, Jack the Mercenary, Jack works for Tang Yi, M/M, Romance, Suspense, enemies to lovers-ish, undercover!jack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22175974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlorBexter/pseuds/FlorBexter
Summary: The Middle - Part 2 of 3Maybe it had been a mistake to tie himself to Tang Yi and his gang in a way that made him feel personally attacked? He knew how to adapt, how to improvise and how to walk away from a case without looking back. Nothing had been personal for him before. He had been the one recommending the plan to be the hidden man, to not reveal himself to anyone else but the inner circle of Xing Tian Meng. He had been able to work for Tang Yi without the restriction other members had because the police had a file on them. Now he had to question all his actions.
Relationships: Jack | Fang Liang Dian/Zhao Li An | Zhao Zi
Series: Breaking the firewall verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587262
Comments: 22
Kudos: 109





	The Middle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [searchingpegasus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchingpegasus/gifts).



> Hi and welcome to Part 2 of my 'Breaking the Firewall' series.  
> Please note that this is an AU in which Jack is working for Tang Yi (and not double-crossing him) while he pretends to be Chief Yan's man. Furthermore, this is a world in which the reason for Shao Fei chasing after Tang Yi isn't Li Zhen's murder.

# The Middle

## Paranoia.

The cup of noodles in front of Jack was a steaming-hot mess and with an annoyed sound, Jack put away his chopsticks. The little convenience store in front of Meng Shao Fei’s apartment was cosy and thankfully without any security cameras. It soothed some of his paranoia. He was still pissed at himself for fleeing out of the apartment without checking what kind of information had been on the board in Meng Shao Fei’s hidden room.

He had panicked and that was _unacceptable_.

What did Meng Shao Fei know? Had Jack made a tactical error when he had searched for Zhao Zi in the hidden and dark parts of the internet, had he betrayed himself? Was Meng Shao Fei on their traces for a long time or only since Jack had joined their division? What was Zhao Zi’s role in all of this?

He mashed up the last intact noodles with vicious stabs of his chopsticks.

Maybe it had been a mistake to tie himself to Tang Yi and his gang in a way that made him feel personally attacked? He knew how to adapt, how to improvise and how to walk away from a case without looking back. Nothing had been personal for him before. He had been the one recommending the plan to be the hidden man, to not reveal himself to anyone else but the inner circle of _Xing Tian Meng._ He had been able to work for Tang Yi without the restriction other members had because the police had a file on them. Now he had to question all his actions.

And had to plan his next ones even more cautiously.

His eyes landed on Zhao Zi's black mop of hair who walked up to the apartment building together with Meng Shao Fei. Jack was hiding in plain sight; in a little store he was sure was visited by Meng Shao Fei frequently and for a moment he entertained himself with the idea to walk up to them or let them know that he was here. To share the paranoia itching at the back of his head.

Jack took a bite from the noodles and let them fall back with a disgusted sound. For a second he had forgotten why he had started to eat only homemade food.

Apropos.

Zhao Zi and Meng Shao Fei disappeared through the entrance door of the building and Jack reminded himself of Tang Yi’s words: _‘I think you should play this how you want to, no instructions from me.’_

Oh, he knew exactly how he wanted to play this.

When he got home, to a flat that wasn’t even on the pay list of _Interpol_ because Chief Yan might not think ten steps ahead, but Jack did, he checked for microphones and cameras. If Zhao Zi was the man they thought he was then it wouldn’t even make him sweat to install surveillance equipment in Jack’s home.

But Jack found nothing. At least that was something that went right on this day of new revelations. He sat down at the little kitchen table, which was wobbly, and now he found it annoying instead of charming when he had bought the darn thing.

The only piece he had invested in was the kitchen. He slept on a futon, his clothes were in a closet just to maintain the appearance of a home and he couldn’t care less about his interior design but the kitchen… the kitchen had to be perfect. His appliances gleamed and the designer fridge hummed silently. He had custom made Japanese knives and most of his pots and equipment were imported from Europe. He had chosen this apartment because it had a tiny balcony, not even big enough to stand on but he could hang some pots out there with herbs. He envied Zhao Zi his little front yard and already knew where exactly he would plant his herbs if he ever had the chance.

It was obvious that Zhao Zi cared about his garden but had no idea how to maintain it to bring it to its full potential. Every time Jack had _visited_ Zhao Zi’s house it had itched in his fingers to just rearrange everything to his liking…

He digressed.

He had a job to do. He had information to gather and secrets to uncover. He had to find out what Meng Shao Fei and Zhao Zi knew, and he had to cook. He pulled out his favourite knife and let the familiar weight of it soothe him. Time to bring out the big guns.

+++

“I remembered you like noodles,” Jack said instead of a greeting and put the bento box in front of Zhao Zi. They worked the late shift and Jack already knew that Zhao Zi always forgot to eat before the shift started and would start to whine about his growling stomach an hour after work began.

“This is for me?”, Zhao Zi asked, and his hands hovered over the bowl like he was afraid Jack would snatch it away.

“Yes, beef noodle soup. I made too much and you know… sharing is caring.” Jack sat down on the chair next to Zhao Zi’s and put down his laptop. With a smile in Zhao Zi’s general direction he powered it up and connected to the network of the police department.

Zhao Zi had opened the lid of the container and then seemed to realize what Jack did.

“You… you changed seats?”

“Mhm?” With a humming sound Jack logged into the program he would need to document everything he did as a member of the police staff and then turned his head towards Zhao Zi.

“What did you say?”

“You changed seats?”

“Oh yes,” Jack exclaimed as if he got aware of that fact this second. “There is a draught where I sat before so I’m going to try my luck here.”

Jack knew how to smile. He had it down to an art form. And the smile he threw Zhao Zi was full of teeth, from ear to ear and as gullible as he was able to. It was blinding. And the moment he saw Zhao Zi darting a glance towards Meng Shao Fei who was in a conversation with Jou Guanzhi he knew that his seating had been intentional. They were able to access the computer Jack had worked with the last weeks and now that he used his own, he was fishing them with the possibility that there was something on it he didn’t want others to see.

“Eat it,” he said absently and waved towards the bowl. “It’s getting cold.”

Zhao Zi’s more basic instincts were about to win as he produced his chopsticks seemingly out of nowhere.

“Thank you,” he said with a mouth full of noodles and Jack just nodded. He didn’t care if Zhao Zi liked his food, he really didn’t, he knew that he was a good, _an excellent,_ cook but he couldn’t deny that the pleased little smile hiding in the corner of his mouth was because of the sounds of pleasure Zhao Zi made between inhaling the noodles.

Sometimes, Jack thought, sometimes you didn’t have to think complicated. Sometimes you just need to know how to cook.

“Zhao Zi, A-Dian, this is the…” Meng Shao Fei looked up from the little box he was holding and stared at Zhao Zi who had made a very loud slurp. He wasn’t even ashamed of it. He just waved at Meng Shao Fei with full cheeks.

“He’s occupied,” Jack said helpfully.

“The Guo Quinglian memory cards,” Meng Shao Fei said. “We think she hid the information about her smuggling on her digital camera.”

“I got it,” Jack said and wanted to take the box. For a moment it seemed like Meng Shao Fei was reluctant to let go but refusing to give items that needed to be looked over by an expert to someone who was _officially_ the expert would raise some questions. Jack just smiled and acted as if nothing happened.

It was so obvious now, he thought as he put the first memory card in a scanner. The way Meng Shao Fei refused to look at Zhao Zi as if he wanted to mouth ‘traitor’ at him. The way Zhao Zi needed reassurance from Meng Shao Fei for every interaction he did with Jack.

Why hadn’t he picked up on that before?

“Wait,” Zhao Zi said, leaned over and put another code in the little pop-up window which appeared on Jack’s screen. “They gave the case another file number.”

The oversized multi-coloured sweater Zhao Zi wore slid down a bit and Jack was tantalizingly near the bare skin of Zhao Zi’s collarbone… as he felt the, by now, familiar ache in his chest he thought: _Oh yes, that’s most likely the reason._

He was accustomed to desire and physical attraction. If it would have been just that he could either seduce Zhao Zi and would walk away after or ignore it. But…

His weak point was his curiosity.

Zhao Zi was fascinating. The dichotomy between a law-abiding police officer who lived in a little house full of memorabilia of his grandma and the hacker people talked about with reverence who once had been mentioned in the news and had made programmers of firewalls sweat.

Who had an oily spot on his cheek because he had eaten the noodles too fast and could twist his body like an acrobat. Who seemed to have figured out Jack’s secret before he realized it, acted like a child when he didn’t get his way but was unwavering in the face of danger. Jack knew the scores of his last shooting test…

“Thank you,” Jack said but what he really wanted to say, what he wanted to scream from the top of his lungs was: _'What are your secrets?'_

+++

The suit shop looked different during the day. It was a legal business with all the papers to prove it, but it still got a shady vibe when you enter it after sundown through the backdoors. Jack hadn’t been sure if the front door was even open at this hour.

It smelled differently, too. As if real people walked inside and bought suits.

Tang Yi looked up from his documents, but Jack didn’t greet him, so Tang Yi just watched him as he wandered through the store feeling up the different fabrics of the clothes. Jack wasn’t a suit and tie man. He preferred his leather jacket and a light button-down and… he missed his leather jacket. He missed his butterfly knife and the way it sounded when he played with it.

Tang Yi leaned back when Jack ended his little inspection and walked up to him. “What are you doing here? Don’t you prefer to be the _invisible_ right-hand man?”

Jack shrugged and thanked one of the gang members who brought him a glass of water.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why?”

Jack stretched his back because boy it wasn’t good for his spine to play an office worker and took one huge gulp. Only the tension in Tang Yi’s jaw told him that he was on the brink of shaking Jack to get his answer.

“They already know I’m tied to you.”

“They already know?”

“Jep,” Jack said and let the _p_ pop. “I mean, Meng Shao Fei and Zhao Zi do, I don’t know about the rest of our lovely police force.”

As predicted Tang Yi’s body language changed when he mentioned Meng Shao Fei. There was a story there and Jack was almost done uncovering all of it but now other secrets took priority.

“They seem to connect us to Chief Yan, maybe they know I work for him, maybe they think we all work together on some nefarious plan.”

Tang Yi scoffed. “Chief Yan is known around Asia as the Human Drug Dog, his fight against the big cartels is legendary.”

Jack shrugged. He wasn’t going to reveal why he only knew so little about Meng Shao Fei’s and Zhao Zi’s theories.

“As of now,” he said, “this became a game of _'who’s going to crack first'._ ”


End file.
